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South Koreaās exports hit a record $120.94 billion as AI chip demand surges
Semiconductor shipments roughly tripled in September, pushing the country to its largest monthly trade surplus on record
South Korea just posted the kind of export month that makes economists recheck their spreadsheets. Exports reached $120.94 billion in September 2026, an 83.5% jump from a year earlier.
That figure marks the first time the country’s monthly exports have topped $120 billion. It also extends the growth streak to 16 consecutive months.
Chips did most of the heavy lifting
Semiconductor exports climbed between 262.8% and 263% year over year, reaching $60.3 billion. Put more simply, chip shipments roughly tripled in twelve months.
No single export category had ever crossed $60 billion in one month before. Semiconductors now account for nearly half of everything South Korea sells abroad.
Economists had expected strong numbers, just not this strong. Forecasts called for 62% growth, and the actual 83.5% result cleared that bar with room to spare.
Computers were the other standout. Computer exports soared 435.3% to $7 billion, driven by demand for AI infrastructure and agentic AI systems, the software agents designed to carry out multistep tasks with limited human input.
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A record surplus and a year already in the books
Imports rose too, climbing 26% to $71.09 billion, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources. But exports grew more than three times faster.
The gap produced a monthly trade surplus of $49.85 billion, the largest on record.
Cumulative exports from January through September totaled $814.5 billion. That already exceeds South Korea’s entire export haul for 2025, with a full quarter still left on the calendar.
The two biggest customers both doubled down
Shipments to China rose 123% to $26 billion, while exports to the US increased 137% to $24.33 billion. Both gains were driven primarily by semiconductors.
Why the AI buildout keeps showing up in trade data
The backdrop here is sustained AI infrastructure investment by hyperscalers, the giant cloud operators that build and run data centers at massive scale. Every new AI data center needs processors, memory, servers and networking gear. South Korea happens to sit at a critical point in that supply chain, particularly for memory.